Friday, February 19, 2010

A firefighter walks inside the damaged IRS building in Austin, Texas into which Joseph Stack flew his small plane. Photograph: Tony Gutierrez/AP

As a long-time student of "false flag" attacks, including the death of JFK, the events of 9/11, the London bombings on 7/7, and others I have discussed on my blog at jamesfetzer.blogspot.com, I have read Joe Stack's note and considered the action he took. This does not have the features essential to a bona-fide "false flag" attack, which include using violence or threats of violence to instill fear in the population to manipulate us for political purposes. Indeed, from this point of view, even the assassination of JFK never quite rose to that level, although the effort to frame Oswald as a pro-Castro communist sympathizer was intended to blame Cuba for taking him out when the true motivation appears to have been to replace his policies on VietNam, Cuba, the test-ban treaty, the FED, the CIA, and organized crime, among other issues, with those of LBJ. James Douglass, JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, offers a brilliant study of JFK's growth in office from a cold warrior to a statesman for peace. And I have published an overview about the assassination at jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2009/11/dealey-plaza-revisited.html

There are more than one species of "false flag" attack, of course, but the crucial consideration is to blame a source other than the actual source for political purposes. If Pearle Harbor and 9/11 were allowed to happen, then they were, let us say, "false flag" attacks of a weak species. If, as with "Remember the Maine!" and the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, attacks that may have not occurred at all are blamed on other nations, then those fall in between. And if the young Kuwaiti woman's testimony before Congress to incite the first Gulf War and the events of 9/11 were actually orchestrated by elements of the government, as appears to be the case, then those are "false flag" attacks in a stronger sense. Classic examples include the Reichstag Fire and the Gleiwitz incident, where Hitler blamed the communists and faked an attack by Poland. Joe Stack's letter, by contrast, appears to be completely sincere and makes the case for doing what he did in a convincing fashion. Unlike others who deal with conspiracies, I discern no signs of a "false flag" operation here but a final act of despair of a man beyond his breaking point.

Not only do Joe Stacks's acts appear to have culminated from a long history of abuse by his employers and injustice from the government, but his comparison of statements about communism compared with capitalism do not appear to have been meant as an endorsement of communism but as a summation of certain crucial characteristics. In fact, the principle "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need", has never been practiced anywhere of which I am aware. The power of the state has never "withered away" to allow such a practice to prevail. But when he draws the parallel, "From each according to their gullibility, to each according to their greed", he makes a very nice point about the manipulative and exploitative practices of capitalism run amuck. Those who continue to undermine the social safety network of FDR, which now includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, and other support mechanisms, are hastening the time when more and more "Joe Stacks" will act out of frustration and loss of faith in a system that has betrayed them. Desperate times provoke desperate acts, not false flag attacks.

It is relatively easy to dismiss the Obama supporters over at Daily Kos for their immediate declarations that Joe Stack, the alleged Austin kamikaze IRS bomber, was a Tea Party fanatic. Daily Kos, after all, is operated by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the former Reagan youth with connections to the CIA.

It is less easy to dismiss Jonathan Capehart, a blogger for the CIA’s favorite newspaper and cherished Operation Mockingbird asset, The Washington Post.

“I am struck by how [Joe Stack's] alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement,” writes Capehart. A couple paragraphs later, Mr. Capehart is compares Stack to Timothy McVeigh. “McVeigh was more than disgruntled. He was murderous. And the alienation he felt from his government in 1995 still affects more than we care to admit 15 years later.”

In fact, McVeigh was more than disgruntled. He was a government agent.

In 2007, McVeigh’s supposed co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, said McVeigh was under the control of Larry Potts of the FBI. Potts was the lead FBI agent at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and also was reportedly involved in the 51-day siege against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas in 1993, which resulted in the murder of 81 Branch Davidians.

Nichols was never allowed to tell the whole story. He was gagged by then Attorney General John Ashcroft.

“Apparently before he had contacted me several years ago he had written to Attorney General Ashcroft, volunteering to tell everything about the bombing and the others involved,” said Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue in 2007. “Not only did no one from Attorney General Ashcroft’s office follow up with Nichols, they actually apparently issued an order barring him from all contact with the media – it was thereafter that he reached out to me and I was able to get in to see him to spend a day and half with him.”

Trentadue’s brother was killed by the FBI, allegedly in a case of mistaken identity because his brother fit the profile of Richard Lee Guthrie, a member of a group called the Midwest Bank Robbery Gang that had been robbing banks to fund an attack on the federal government.

During the process of a lawsuit to get to the bottom of his brother’s murder, Trentadue received documents with names redacted that revealed the FBI’s OKC bombing informants were conducting armed robberies with Timothy McVeigh in order to fund the construction of the fertilizer bomb used in the attack on the federal building.

“One of the foreign informants was actually the explosives instructor who taught him how to make the bomb,” Trentadue told Jones.

9/11 The Road to Tyranny--Oklahoma City Bombing. This Alex Jones documentary outlines the United States' descent into tyranny, exposing the Project for a New American Century members Richard Bruce Cheney and others who co-authored or co-sponsored their blueprint for world domination entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses."

“I think [the FBI] put together this harebrained idea at Elohim City [the Identity movement settlement in Oklahoma] to lure in all these militia groups under the pretense of teaching them how to rob banks in armored cars and attack the federal government and I think they planned to catch them in the act,” said Trentadue.

In addition to the FBI, the Southern Poverty Law Center had a role in creating the supposed terrorist threat centered at Elohim City.

In 2003, the McCurtain Daily Gazette obtained an unclassified copy of a memorandum from the Director of the FBI revealing the SPLC’s role. Dated Jan. 4, 1996, the four-page cable was drafted and issued under the authority of FBI director Louis Freeh and is heavily redacted. However, despite the redaction, the memo exposes an informant operation being conducted at the time by Morris Dees and his notorious SPLC.

“If I told you what we were doing there, I would have to kill you,” Dees later told reporters.

As it turns out, McVeigh’s contact at Elohim City, Andreas Carl Strassmeir, who was allegedly connected to Aryan Republican Army, spent several years in the German army, including a stint as an intelligence officer. Peter Langan, the son of a retired U.S. Marine intelligence officer and said to be the leader of the Aryan Republican Army, was a government informant.

In short, the supposed white supremacist movement at Elohim City was a government operation.

Less than 24 hours after the event in Austin, we still only have a sketchy idea of who Joe Stack was. People say the attack was completely contrary to his character. He was apolitical and not given to diatribes against the government.

Is it possible he was set-up or possibly killed and put in a remote controlled plane that was directed into the Echelon office complex that houses IRS offices in Austin? Considering government complicity in numerous terrorist events — including the documented false flag event of September 11, 2001, and the obvious government operation in Oklahoma City — there is a distinct possibility.

Federal investigators are at a fiery scene in Austin, Texas where the pilot of a small plane has slammed into a seven-story building with offices for the IRS and the CIA. The pilot has been identified as Joseph Andrew Stack. Alex Jones says, while the government is not calling it "terrorism", he thinks it may be a "false flag" attack.

The Joe Stack Manifesto18 February 2010

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

Lou Dobbs reports on the impending attack on white collar workers in America.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.